Frisians

The Frisians are an ethnic group of northwestern Europe, inhabiting an area known as Frisia.

History

In Roman times

The ancestors of the Dutch were defeated by the Romans under Augustus, when they managed to defeat the Belgae and the Batavians. However the Frisians were able to form a treaty with the Romans at the River Rhine in 28 AD, avoiding conquest. But 16 years later, when taxes became repressive, they hung the taxman and defeated the Romans under Tiberius at the Battle of Baduhennawood. The Frisii were known and respected by the Romans and written about by several sources. Tacitus wrote a treatise about the Germanic peoples in 69 AD, describing the habits of the Germanic people, as well as listing numerous tribes by name. Of the many tribes mentioned, the Frisians are the only ones that have preserved their ancient name.[http://www.i-friesland.com/Tacitus_tribes.htm

Friesland had been early settled, with evidence of terp-building, the distinctive raised settlements, starting in 700 BC. The people began to be a distinctive tribe in around 200 BC. They were displaced from their homeland to Flanders and Kent, England due to heavy flooding in 250 AD. Habitation of the area remained impossible for the next 150 years. When some of the Frisians returned around 400 AD there were already Saxons and Jutes settled there, and the Frisian people merged with them, maintaining the identity and traditions of the Frisian tribe. The Frisians were closely related to the Saxons and the Frisian language remains the closest surviving language to English.

The Roman historian Tacitus, in his Germania, mentioned the Frisians among people he grouped together as the Ingvaeones. Two different types, or classes are mentioned by Tacitus, the maiores Frisii and the minores Frisii. Divided by the soil of their farmlands, the maiores Frisii or Clay Frisians populated fertile clay soil increasing the size of their harvests, lifestock and even their posture. The small and relatively unhealthy minores Frisii (Sand Frisians) farmed on sand lands and subsequently their crops lacked size or number compared to those of the maiores Frisii. According to Tacitus even the armies of the maiores were larger and better equipped.

They were probably a people of seafarers, the North Sea spanning from Bretagne to Eastern Denmark, was referred to as the Mare Frisia at that time. Small groups of Frisians settled the surrounding lands and their settlements have been traced to England, Scotland, Denmark, Germany, Belgium, France and obviously to The Netherlands.

Their territory followed the coast of the North Sea from the mouth of the Rhine river up to that of the Ems, their eastern border according to Ptolemy's Geographica. Pliny the Elder states in Belgica that they were conquered by the Roman general Drusus in 12 BC, after that several uprisings have been mentioned by Tacitus. The most noted of these is their partake in the Batavian rebellion. Thereafter the Frisians largely sank into historical obscurity, until coming into contact with the expanding Merovingian and Carolingian empires.

In the 5th Century, during this period of historical silence, many of them no doubt joined the migration of the Anglo-Saxons who went through Frisian territory to invade Great Britain, while those who stayed on the continent expanded into the newly-emptied lands previously occupied by the Anglo-Saxons. By the end of the sixth century the Frisians occupied the coast all the way to the mouth of the Weser and spread farther still in the seventh century, southward down to Dorestad and even Bruges. This farthest extent of Frisian territory is known as Frisia Magna.

The empire that came in to being after the fall of the Western Roman Empire was governed by a king or a duke. The earliest document referring to an independent state ruled by a king is dated 678. Early attempts to Christianize Frisia were unsuccessful in converting the fierce pagan Frisians and various monks were murdered or banished, such as the legendary example of the murder of Bonifatius in Dokkum. King Radbod was even able to beat the mighty Charles Martel in 714 to preserve independence. Twenty years later Charles Martel got his revenge and effectively subjugated the entire Frisian empire. Christianity was also enforced by the Christian Franks and in Utrecht a Bishop was installed to see to Christian affairs in Frisia. Not until the early 800s did they fully reclaim their independence from the Frankish grip. Christianity had however taken root and had been adopted by most Frisians.

Kings or Dukes of Friesland

The princes of the Frisians in the early Middle Ages were:

Folcwald ???-???
Finn ???-???
Sibbelt ???-???
Ritzard ???-???
Aldgisl ???-680
Radbod (also known as Redbad) 680-719
Poppo 719-734

The last three were certainly historical figures. The first four may be only legendary. What their exact title was depends on the source. Frankish sources tend to call them dukes, other sources often call them kings.

Friesland in the middle ages

Freedom of the Frisian People, Frisian Law

In the 8th century Charlemagne freed the people of Friesland from swearing fealty to foreign overlords “That all Frisians would be fully free, the born and the unborn, so long as the wind blows from heaven and the child cries, grass grows green and flowers bloom, as far as the sun rises and the world stands.”

This is from a 12th century law text^* written in Old Frisian using the poetic saga-style of Scandinavian epics. There are a substantial number of existing Frisian law texts and some of these have yet to be studied. There is currently a Frisia Project at the University of Amsterdam that is studying the ancient history of Friesland, which will likely uncover a lot more fascinating facts.

But the tantalising tidbits of Frisian history that are already known reveal a people not much given to making their mark on history, except when provoked, and then fighting with a legendary fierceness to protect their freedom.

Modern history

The modern remnants of Frisia Magna are small and scattered. Most of it became dominated by its expanding neighbors: the Saxons (who were moving north and west) and the Franks (who were pushing north and east). Western and Middle Frisia are solidly within the modern state of the Netherlands, which now includes the "heartland" of the Frisians from the North Sea coast from Alkmaar in the modern province of Noord-Holland, along the coasts of the modern provinces of Friesland and Groningen, and up to the mouth of the Ems. Culturally, it has shrunk down to the province of Friesland alone. The Frisian language is now spoken only there and in parts of only the Wadden Sea islands of Terschelling and Schiermonnikoog. East and North Frisia have been absorbed into the northern states of Germany, with only the marshes of Saterland, well inland from the coast, still retaining any cultural identity. There are also descendants of Frisians living on the coast of the Jutland peninsula and nearby islands. It is unclear when they arrived there, or even whether they lived first on the islands and then spread to the mainland, or vice-versa. What remains of their language is under heavy pressure from Low German, standard German, and Danish, and faces possible extinction.

External links

The Frisian Meeting Place

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